None of the new police recruits tested positive for drugs when subjected to medical exams prior to their admission to the force’s academy.

According to the police, since 2013, 488 new recruits have been subjected to a urine test to determine whether they abused any illicit substance before they were allowed to start their training at the academy.

None tested positive and no one was prevented from joining the force on the grounds of substance misuse, the police told the Times of Malta.

Times of Malta sought information on the number of new officers who might have tested positive in the wake of revelations that three police officers had been caught in possession of cocaine in a Paceville nightclub a few days before Christmas.

There is concern internal controls have been quite lax in recent years

One of the officers caught red-handed had only been on the force for a week, having been part of the last group of recruits to take the oath of allegiance on December 16.

Police Commissioner Laurence Cutajar told this paper earlier this month that officers were only tested for drugs if suspicions of substance abuse arose, while Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia insisted that all new recruits were tested for drugs upon entering the police academy.

Despite this, while both the police and the Home Affairs Ministry confirmed that the number of officers tested since 2013 was 488, media reports on the number of new recruits suggest the number was higher.

Questions sent to the police to clarify how many new police officers entered the force in the past five years were not answered by the time of writing.

Rules on the recruitment of police were changed when the Labour Party came to power in 2013, with officers with a criminal record being allowed to join.

Previously, individuals who did not have a clean criminal record were automatically disqualified from joining.

According to information given in Parliament in 2017, 27 officers recruited since the start of 2016 had a criminal record.

Police sources who spoke to the Times of Malta have also exp-ressed concern that internal controls had been “quite lax” in recent years, questioning if any form of screening was being carried out, since they had never been requested to submit a urine sample despite serving in the force for some time.

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